Pepsi and Twitter have signed a year-long partnership that will watch as Pepsi curates and gives away free song downloads to followers of its brand via the social network.

Pepsi has branded the event the “Live for Now Music” initiative which is part of the company’s “Live for Now” campaign which features cans barring a silhouette of Michael Jackson.

Through the Twitter campaign Pepsi will offer free music downloads, music videos and pop-up concerts that will occur throughout the summer and fall.

Every Wednesday Pepsi will then use the Twitter platform to present an overview of artists, music and music news trending.

Music downloads through @pepsi will be taken care of through the Amazon MP3 store and followers can check out announcements using #PepsiMusicNOW and that hashtag will be used for communication with the campaign. [Read more…]

Pepsi is taking social sharing to a whole new level. The company on Wednesday announced the world’s first “social vending machine” which allows users to insert money and send refreshing beverages to friends who can then access their free drinks through other social vending machines around the country.

The system is simple enough to operate, first a user walks up to a machine and chooses a beverage to “share” with a friend, they then insert their cash and enter a personalized text message, while some machines will even have cameras for video messaging.

After the users send the drink they’ve paid for the receiving party can access their beverage from any social vending machine they can find.

Pepsi will also be offering random free drinks to social media users in a program they call “Random Acts of Refreshment.”

Here’s what Pepsi had to say about their social vending machines: [Read more…]